“She was missing.”
“I was classified,” I said.
“Not missing.”
He turned on me.
“How was I supposed to know the difference?”
The captain removed another document from the folder.
“Because you searched Commander Reed’s service identifier seventeen times.”
Mason froze.
My mother made a small sound.
Captain Hale continued.
“You accessed a restricted routing index through your assignment office.
The first search occurred eleven months ago.
The final search occurred three days before you signed the statement.”
Mason’s eyes moved toward the nearest exit.
The admiral noticed.
“You will remain where you are.”
“I was trying to find my sister.”
“Then why did you never contact her?” Lindsay asked.
He did not answer.
My mother’s hands began twisting an invisible tissue.
“I remember something,” she whispered.
My father looked at her.
“Elaine.”
She flinched at the warning in his voice, but she continued.
“Mason came to the house last winter.
He asked whether Mara had ever mentioned a phrase.
Night Lantern.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“That I had never heard it.” Her eyes filled, but her voice steadied.
“Your father said that whatever you had done could not matter very much if no one was allowed to know.”
My father’s face reddened.
“That is not what I meant.”
Mason spoke quickly.
“Dad didn’t know what I was doing.”
“No,” my father said.
“I did not.”
It was the first time that morning he had distanced himself from his son.
Mason heard it too.
He looked at our father with naked disbelief.
“You said she had abandoned the family.
You said she had probably spent fifteen years behind a desk pretending to be important.”
“That does not mean I told you to falsify a report.”
“You told me the Reed name needed one child worth being proud of.”
My mother closed her eyes.
Lindsay lowered herself into a chair.
The admiral allowed the silence to hold.
Then he placed the statement on the edge of the stage.
“Lieutenant Reed, this review began because portions of your account conflicted with archived communications data.
Your sister’s presence provided an opportunity to resolve that conflict before the award was presented.
You have now offered three different explanations.”
Mason looked at me.
“Tell them I helped somehow.”
The request was so desperate that, for a moment, no one reacted.
He took a step closer.
“You don’t have to confirm every detail.
